Through the Smoke and to the Sky
by PervyMonk
Summary: Jackson Rippner's sentence was 70 years-he'd hadn't tried to charm the jury. He didn't even lie. Lisa's trying to get to a state where she can feel good about life again. Then he starts sending her letters, and she feels like Alice falling down the rabbit hole into a world she never knew existed, and desperately wanted to escape. But she only had herself to blame. Eventual LxJ
1. All Alone She Was Living

Prologue: All Alone She Was Living

He doesn't know when she went from 'the target' to 'Lisa Reisert'. But if he had to guess, it was somewhere around the fourth week. It had been easy enough to install cameras in that small, fashionable apartment of hers. One in the corner of the hallway on her floor. One in the bookshelf she favors in the living room. One in the kitchen, in clear view of the stove. One in the bathroom, carefully waterproofed and placed in the showerhead. (He had rolled his eyes when his tech guy, Cero, had wiggled his eyebrows suggestively while installing it.)

One in the bedroom, where she never took anyone.

Week one she's just an ordinary, if boring, woman. She goes to work, plasters on a false costumer service smile, and handles any complaints with an expertly unstrained patience. She goes home, turns on old noir movies-he scoffs when he sees her choice is _Casablanca_ -and curls up with a steaming cup of tea.

Week two is more of the same, though with a different choice in movie: _Key Largo._ He grudgingly approves, and continues assessing her to complete her psychological profile. Her taste in Humphrey Boggart probably wouldn't be a key factor in breaking her, when the time came. However, if she proved to be as big of a loner as he suspected-that he could work with.

Week three he watches her sleep, yawning widely, and making plans to go to bed himself. He moves to push himself out of his chair when she wakes up screaming. He turns back to the screen, watching as she almost tumbles out of bed. She collapses against the sink in the bathroom, and he can hear her trying to stifle her sobs. He can see the reflection of his blue eyes over her shaking form. He settles back in the chair, and watches as she makes scrambled eggs with a trembling body, David Bowie's _Let's Dance_ playing in the background.

She sways gently, hips rocking to the beat, and he subconsciously shifts forward in his seat.

"If you say run, I'll run with you," she sings along softly. "If you say hide, we'll hide." He watches her as sashays over to the cabinet, pulling out a plate and a glass. She sets them on functional, if terribly unstylish, kitchen table she owns. She tilts her head forward, long hair covering her face, and she swishes her hair back and forth. She looks strangely vulnerable, ethereal even, dancing sadly by herself in her kitchen.

"Because my love for you, would break my heart in two," he mutters along, catching himself.

Week four he follows her, and finally gets to see what she does when she has a few days to herself. She likes to swim, and he follows her to the pool. He lounges in swim trunks, shades and a ridiculously large straw hat, acting as if he is working on his tan, as she swims lap after lap. She's wearing a red swimsuit, one of the full body ones, and he admires the way the color brings out the auburn of her hair. She rarely goes out, so he's stuck watching her through a black and white security feed most days. Seeing her in living color takes his breath away for a reason he's too uncomfortable to analyze.

She pushes herself up out of the pool and, as soon as she's on her feet some frat boy begins to hit on her with all of the usual lines. He furrows his brow, annoyed that the other man can't see how uncomfortable she is or how she shies away from him. He stands, pretending she's moving closer to _him._ The frat boy pulls out his phone to snap a picture of her and something in him snaps. He doesn't know why he does what he does, but he stands and walks toward them. He "trips", knocking the frat boy and his phone into the pool. He comes up, sputtering and cursing.

"Sorry, bro," he says in an affected Californian accent.

Lisa smiles shyly at him and that's when the daydreams-more accurate to call them fantasies-begin.

They start simple at first-he imagines himself with her as she goes throughout her day. He makes passing comments in his head when he watches her deal with irate patrons of the _Lux,_ offers silent flattery at the outfits she picks to wear. When she makes eggs at 3 in the morning, he imagines cooking with her, washing the dishes and dancing to Bowie in the kitchen. He applauds her movie choices when she chooses gritty noir mysteries and rolls his eyes with a secret smile when she picks the romances. When she goes to the café at the corner of her block for cocktails-Sea Breezes, every time-he imagines sliding up to her and charming her with his wit, with his smile, with his affected normalcy.

What she's making him feel isn't normal.

Week five, he breaks down and watches her shower. He's shifting nervously in his seat the entire time, unable to convince himself that total surveillance is key to creating the perfect psychological profile. He doubts her toiletries would provide any sort of decent leverage.

But he doesn't stop himself leaning forward in his seat as she steps into the shower. She turns it on, her eyes closing in bliss, and she leans her forehead against the tile as if offering him an unhindered view of her back. He watches water stream down the curve of her back, over her hips and ass to drip down her legs. She lathers up, and he subconsciously licks his lips at the sight of her hands running soap across her body. Jesus, what he would give to be those soap suds. He imagines stepping in behind her, pressing his lips to the side of her neck and covering her hands with his as she washes herself. His brow furrows when he sees something below her shoulder, covered by soap suds and her hair. He leans forward to see it more clearly but his phone rings, and he turns away to answer it.

Week six she makes scrambled eggs at three in the morning with increasing frequency, and his brow furrows as he watches her for maybe the 13th time since he started watching her, and the fourth time that week. She's so achingly lonely, sitting at her ugly kitchen table with scrambled eggs topped with cheese and a steaming mug of tea. He watches her watch the sun come up, with the rising sunlight illuminating a sort of sad smile on her lips, probably one of the few real ones he's seen her have and he thinks absurdly _this moment, and all the moments before or since, are mine._

Week 7 she takes a sick day, though she looks perfectly healthy. He has to hide a smile as he watches her sleep in late (she deserves it; she works too hard on too little rest). She wanders around her apartment sweats two sizes too large for her, drinking tea and watching an old mystery marathon on television. He's perfectly content to watch her spend another lonely night in when her phone rings. His brow furrows as she gets up to answer it. He goes through the admittedly short list of acquaintances she has, and doesn't think any one of them would call. It couldn't be her boss with Lisa's impeccable track record, this fake sick day non withstanding, and certainly not the new trainee Cynthia. He'd watched the ditsy woman try to get close to Lisa, only to fall short of scaling the nigh insurmountable walls she'd built around herself.

The phone call is her father and, unsurprisingly, he invites Lisa out to dinner. More surprising is Lisa's acceptance. He watches her change from sweats to a casual summer dress ( _the blue of it brings out the green of your eyes,_ he imagines saying) and follows her to a small, family owned Italian place. Her father is already waiting for her at an outside table, and she leans over to hug him. He takes his seat a few tables down, listening to their conversation. His eyes never stray from Lisa.

He pretends to be sitting with the two of them, another of his dangerous idle fantasies. Lisa would introduce him and he would give his careless smile. Oh, her father would be wary of him at first, as a good father should be, but her would charm the elder Reisert eventually. Lisa turns her head to the side, smiling, and he smiles in return, savoring the nonexistent attention. Her hand lays on the tablecloth, and he imagines covering it with his own.

He listens to the warm conversation she has with her father and thinks: _this is the leverage he can use to break Lisa Reisert._ The thought doesn't give him near as much pleasure as it should, if only from the fact he's never liked breaking what was already broken.

Later that week, he looks down at the wallet his associate procured for him, stitched with the initials 'J.R'. Joe Reisert. He smiles. _Jackson Rippner,_ he thinks, snickering slightly at the pun. He wonders how she'll react to his alias, if she'll find it clever or disturbing.

Week eight, her grandmother dies and she takes the first plane out to Texas. He follows her as he's meant to do, uncomfortably addicted to being her shadow, and feels that this is the beginning of the end. He ends up watching as all of his company's careful planning fall apart around him as a result of a woman who was not as broken as he first anticipated.

He finds himself proud of her, once the blinding rage fades, and missing her terribly once he's shut amongst iron bars. He supposes that's why he picks up his pen.


	2. With a Glacier's Patience

Chapter One: With a Glacier's Patience

Lisa Resiert doesn't mind being ordinary. After her attack, ( _the first one, in the parking lot)_ , she clung to that normalcy like a mask. She had hid herself behind a false smile, a false sense of normalcy. She silently begged everyone around her to see her as normal, and slightly resented them for not seeing how different she was.

How broken.

The Red Eye from Dallas to Miami changed that. _He_ changed that. Through him, she learned that she wasn't broken, only hurt. She learned that she could overcome anything.

The trial had been a bland affair after all of the excitement of the Red Eye. Lisa had been facing charges of collaboration with a terrorist, but Jackson's testimony cleared that. Jackson hadn't even lied ( _I've never lied to you, Leese. You know why? It doesn't serve me)_. His voice had been raspy, an effect of her stabbing the pen into his throat. She keeps her eyes on the white bandage covering the wound, watching the gauze move up and down, as he keeps his eyes on her. His story exactly matches hers, with one caveat-he refuses to give up his employers. And he clearly states that Lisa had been acting under duress, that he had threatened her father and caused her bodily harm.

" _She's no more a terrorist than I am a boy scout,"_ he had said.

He'd never once moved her eyes from her, even when addressed by the prosecutor. After his verdict of guilty had been read ( _We the jury find Jackson Rippner guilty of the charges of 4 counts of attempted murder, 1 count of coercion and hereby sentence him to 70 years…),_ he had smiled as if he were remembering a joke only he knew the punchline to. He had turned in Lisa's direction and she had foolishly met his eyes with a sense of victory.

" _See you soon, Leese,_ " he had rasped, winking and blowing her a kiss with his cuffed hands. She flinches violently at the memory.

At first, she had separated her life into two parts: _Before rape_ and _after rape._ After the trial, it was _Before Jackson Rippner_ and _after Jackson Rippner. After_ hasn't been so bad, in her opinion. Her father had insisted she move back in with him. She'd refused, though she indulges him good-naturedly when he fusses over her and has dinner over there more often than she used to. She still goes to work, avoiding the press even after the better part of a year has passed since the Keefe attack. She catches a lone reporter lurking every once and a while, and wonders with a shudder who else may be around.

It is back to self-help books, lonely nights and scrambled eggs at 3 in the morning with classic movies playing in the background.

Then she gets the first letter.

It is an unassuming envelope enveloped in harsh masculine script. _Lisa Henri,_ the envelope says, and at first she's sure it's a mistake-that it has been addressed to the wrong apartment. But then she sees the return address:

 _J.R_

 _7000 41_ _st_ _St_

 _Miami, FL_

 _33166_

Her first instinct is to throw it away and she does; she drops it in the kitchen trash. She takes trembling steps toward the back of her apartment, thinking of the benzos in her bedroom dresser with an angry sort of longing. She stops halfway to her room, turning back to the kitchen. With a sigh and a morbid sort of curiosity, she plucks it from the garbage. She sets a pan on the stove, turning the flame to low and briefly considering setting the letter on fire before deciding against it. She sits down, braces herself, and opens the letter.

 _Lisa Henrietta Reisert,_

 _That name is a handful, as is the woman who owns it. I wonder if you'll even open this letter, or if you'll throw it out. The prison shrink said it'd be healthy for me to write my thoughts down-hell, there isn't very much I could write that wouldn't be redacted by the government later. I'd worry about being blackbagged in the middle of the night but, well, it isn't as if I'm going anywhere anytime soon. You made sure of that._

 _Not that I blame you. Anymore. Time has a way of healing all wounds, even those caused by a ball pen to the throat (or a heel to the thigh, or a bullet to the chest). Time softens anger, and grief-all that has escape its hungry maw is a sense of admiration._

 _I admire you for keeping me from finishing the Keefe job, among other things. I hate you for keeping me from finishing the Keefe job._

 _Come see me,_ the letter orders, as if he is in any position to order her around. _I've forgotten the color of your eyes._

She sits, dumbstruck for a few seconds, before standing and wildly tearing through her apartment for something to pen a reply with. She slams the paper down on her kitchen table with more force than she'd intended, and as she grips the pen she remembers the feeling of shoving on into Rippner's trachea.

 _Jack,_ she scribbles down. _You forgot when I beat you shitless with a hockey stick. Don't write me again._ She shakes as she seals it in an envelope, and tears the first two stamps she tries to place in the corner to shreds. She all but throws it in the mailbox outside of her apartment, trying not to compare the blue of it to Rippner's eyes, and waits.

She doesn't tell her therapist about the letter at the next one of their bimonthly session. She's talked about Jackson before, although the professional sympathetic tone Dr. Bacaar takes is enough to make her want to fall silent for the rest of her life.

" _You're in shock, Lisa,"_ he'd told her at one of the first visits when she mentioned seeing Jackson around every corner, in every set of blue eyes that turned her way. She'd continue to talk about Jackson: about meeting at the Tex-Mex, about how betrayed she'd felt on the red-eye, about the feeling of his hands around her throat and the hiss of his voice in her ear.

" _It sounds as though you admire him,"_ he'd said later after all of her talk.

" _Jackson never lied,"_ she'd replied. " _I appreciated it, in a weird way."_

She's a trembling wreck for the next few days. She argues with herself-she shouldn't have written the letter at all, and shouldn't have given him the satisfaction of a response. She should have written more to let him know what a fucked up and deranged man she'd thought he was. She should let go of his memory, and it rot in the prison of her mind. But she finds herself holding on to it for dear life.

In a way, he made her strong: stronger than she ever thought she could be, and she loathes being in his debt.

She checks the mail with an almost obsessive compulsion and, when the next letter finally arrives, she tears it open with a frantic desperation.

 _Lisa,_

 _I'm surprised you wrote back. And also delighted, even if the letter was short. I haven't forgotten the hockey stick-you have a hell of a swing. The bruises still haven't completed faded. You definitely left your marks on me._

' _Don't write again'? Come on, Lisa-that's all you have to say to me? After all we went through? I'd like to think we were friendly, back at the Tex-Mex and before the red-eye._

 _You left your mark on me, Lisa. The question is did I leave my mark on you? I'd like to see if I did-come see me._

An involuntary whimper escapes past her lips. _Come see me,_ he urges again. He can't possibly want to see her for anything other than to start another fucked up mind game. _I won't reply,_ she tells herself even as the pen hits paper.

 _Jack,_

 _If I ever see you again, I'll make sure to leave more than a mark-I'll leave you an ugly corpse._

She sends it, despite her better judgment, and wonders how long she'll indulge this sick game he's playing at. That _she's_ playing at. The next letter is shorter than the others, and the words glitter with an affection that makes her feel sick to her stomach.

 _Lisa, Lisa, Lisa-_

 _Death threats are petty, and beneath you._

 _I'm impressed._

 _Please come see me. Look, I'm asking nicely. I can't touch you through the class of the visiting area, if that's what you're worried about._

 _Let me have the opportunity to relearn the cadence of your voice. I've heard that's one of the first things a person forgets, but I want yours to be unforgettable._

She crumplesthe letter in her fist, closing her eyes to lean against the wall of her apartment. Blue eyes stare back at her from behind her eyelids.

With the shadow of Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center looming over her, seemingly blacking out the sun behind its mammoth form, Lisa couldn't think of worse idea than this one. She walks into the prison, trying to act as if she had good cause for being there. She wishes she could give a fake name, but they need her driver's license, and once they see that along with hearing who she wanted to see, their false pity is almost enough to make her turn around.

But she doesn't.

Jackson sits calmly behind the thick glass of the visitor's area with a look of bored indifference on his face. His blue eyes flash up to meet hers when she walks into the room, and ice water runs through her veins at the smile that lights up his face. She can't hear him yet, being as far from him as she is, but she watches his mouth form one word through the glass.

 _Leese._

Sighing, she takes her place across from him as he eagerly reaches for the phone. Her hands rests over the bridge of the phone before grasping it, and it weighs like a boulder in her palm.

* * *

Ooops my hand slipped


End file.
